Up til today I was one of those clueless users, my friend told me what they're doing and I couldn't believe him until I come here and saw for myself that its true. Your suggestion actually makes sense, I should have waited until release to change my review. I was just very angry that they would butcher this game that I only paid for BECAUSE it allows me to play without hyperlanes. And I guess my favorite mod Star Trek: New Horizons is going to die now? How can they do this to a fully released game??
FTL Discussion Thread
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Up til today I was one of those clueless users, my friend told me what they're doing and I couldn't believe him until I come here and saw for myself that its true. Your suggestion actually makes sense, I should have waited until release to change my review. I was just very angry that they would butcher this game that I only paid for BECAUSE it allows me to play without hyperlanes. And I guess my favorite mod Star Trek: New Horizons is going to die now? How can they do this to a fully released game??
Honestly, the idea of being able to build actual stargates made up the loss for me...
i just feel like mentioning they did it by making every FTL take several turns to get anywhere, with at top something like 100 systems. with 1000 systems it became harder to balance because movement needed to be somewhat quick(so by lategame the galaxy felt as big as your neighborhood at game start), and this ultimately meant with how the FTLs existed, that because by late game the 2 FTL besides hyperlane could skip 3-6 systems in a single jump (none of that in SotS) hyperlanes could simply never keep up, even when going in a straight line following warp.
so yeah, people bring up SotS and say it worked, but that's because it had a much smaller scope for the size of its conflicts. you rarely had a war with more than 2 people involved.
(also the majority of their FTL was warp anyway with a few rules tacked on like the stutter drive or morrigi flock drive, and if i remember the hyperlane in that game could skip over stars instead of stopping for a turn.)
So is the FTL change more about fixing performance issues by removing some cpu intensive pathfinding processes from the game or for improving combat situations?
Both? neither? I made a comment on this elsewhere, but my impression is that essentially the change seems to be geared to make it easier for the developers to design new subsystems and mechanics or rework preexisting ones in the future, rather than as a standalone package geared to solve currently existing problems.
The simplification on pathfinding logic seems to be a neat side effect, rather than the main reason of the change.
A tiny correction. Lighthouse Interactive publisher was the original publisher before they went under. Then Kerberos Productions move over to Paradox Interactive and the rest is history.
But otherwise good post overall.
The dev diary for FTL re-work wording seems to suggest that they went that direction because of GUI (how to explain where you can go with wormhole/warp inhibitor FTL), gameplay, and other reasons. Especially in the follow paragraph from dev diary #92 which I can't directly quote due to issues with forum software but I am going to link to it anyway.
Stellaris Dev Diary #92: FTL Rework and Galactic Terrain
My biggest grip with that statment is Distant Worlds Universe managed to pull it off with LESS CPU requirement than Stellaris did (2 GHz vs 3.1 GHz recommend spec). Not that it would affect me if they decided to raise the CPU recommend spec much but it would upset other people for sure. Nevermind the feature galore such as civilian ship, galaxy-wide economy demand/supply system, interesting galactic geography feature, isolated island with all warp-drive FTL, no less than 4 full distinct different game mode (play as regular empire, play as pirate, start without FTL, pre-scripted advance start with a serious crippling crisis in a few years in), and other.
Also that slider? It doesn't matter if I jack the connectivesness of hyperlane up; the original thing that I hate the most about Hyperlane will be still there. Such as having to travel from hyperlane node to hyperlane node in additional to restrictiveness of early exploration that can be crippling (stuck behind a Fallen Empire because they block your only route out comes to mind here).
They were trying to fix the wrong problem. Interdiction bubbles/snares were not the solution in the first place. They are just another hard choke point implementation. They would have resulted in the same flat and uninspiring gameplay as hyperlanes only choke point will: a doomstack race between the defenders deathtraps and the attackers deathballs.
If you're unfamiliar with how Paradox see and make their games, it's probably why you're surprised and think it's outrageous. If you compare the vanilla version of CK2 and it's current version, it's basically a new game because many game mechanics changed over time. In the end, these changes improved gameplay and after more than 1000 hours, I still like to play that game.
When I bought Stellaris, I knew it was only the beginning and it was possible that some patch in the future would completely change gameplay from the vanilla version. I'm sad to see wormhole FTL go but I think chances we were promised are way better than a FTL choice.
As someone said earlier, wait until the patch is released and evaluate all the changes and if you hate it, your negative Steam review will represent your criticism of this game.
The thing is upcoming Cerryh changes is just exactly the same thing even if Paradox went the extra mile and keep all 3 FTL type in and add a different system of Interdiction for each FTL respectively.
I much rather have the option to have differential starting FTL instead of the boring restrictive hyperlane exploration every single time. Furthermore I don't want map generation to determine where I should put my starbases.
Combat isn't as important to me as other people. Since I only play singleplayer on ironman and nothing else.
If I was project leader on Stellaris. I would have add attrition/fuel abstraction (not too dissimilar to what EU 4 naval attrition works now) to all 3 FTL type. Make hyperlane FTL travel through node like in Cerryh. Add some galactic restriction for all 3 FTL types (isolated islands) but can be overcome through better manage attrition/faster engine tech etc...
Keep most other changes as they are. Even the changes I am not too excited about (influence to create outpost, build warship in occupied starbases, and other).
I don't need to wait for Cerryh update to "evaluate" hyperlane FTL. Sure you could argue that all changes put together could be better in the end. The thing is there are so many hyperlane FTL game out there. Name one and I may already have play it before. I can also go and try hyperlane only mode right now in 1.8.3 Stellaris. This isn't something that we have not "tried" before.
Sure I could pretend that the border/combat and other mechanics will be different in Cerryh. However it doesn't change how I feel about hyperlane FTL in general. One of the main reason why I brought into Stellaris was that they had 3 different FTL type. Now uniqueness is gone and I will just simply vote/voice where my money should have gone.
I rather speak up NOW before those change goes live to let them know I am not happy. Furthermore, nothing I have seen through teaser/previous DD is enough to keep me playing. Not even the combat changes.
chess, knights have jump drives.
p.s. I was thinking about the other thread, and i went and checked on it, i much prefer the discussion here than there. -_- so much doom and gloom and 'you're enjoying the game wrong' over there.
I played Master of Orion, Swords of the Stars, Endless Space and Sins of Solar empire a lot and FTL choices were never really a criteria to choose a strategy game in space. It's probably why I don't really understand how some people are really reacting badly about this new change.
You're free to do it and it's your right. However, I still think that people are way too intense about it. It's just a game.
I admit, I didn't pick up SotS for the FTL choices; in fact, I was kind of leery of it at first. But it *is* one of the reasons I go back to it more often than I do Endless Space; and I don't think I've even *looked* at Sins in about 5 years. And FTL choice was one of the reasons I gave Stellaris a chance. If it had launched without it, I may or may not have bought it; but I'd certainly be less disappointed about losing that feature now.
350.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'none of that in SotS' - late game Hiver gate tech lets you skip *the entire galaxy* in a single jump, while node drives (hyperlane equivalent) were still stuck on the rails.
I don't believe the size of the galaxy was really an issue - though Stellaris hyperdrive ships getting 'hung up' on systems they were just passing through would be an issue. (You are correct, SotS node drives could pass through without stopping which helped quite a bit.) The difference between turn based and real time *might* have been a factor, but I think the real difference is that they were committed to working on that balance from the start, and willing to put other things (like trade, which never showed up till the second or third expansion IIRC) on hold in order to focus on that.
Paradox, I feel, is committed to other things than balancing the ships.
The reason why movement matters is that movement is the FIRST element of STRATEGIC WARFARE, the more movement types you and your opponents forces are capable of the greater the strategic depth. This is why RTS games which initially started with all ground units evolved to have large numbers of air units as well as navel units, teleporting units, subterranean units etc. Each additional movement type had a multiplicative effect on strategy. Note that attack/defense types have a similar effect but are capped in a way movement isn't, all units can still engage each other once they have moved into range, but too many attack/defense types make counter-play too much of a guessing game.
Note that we should be allowing each race to use multiple types of FTL, ideally by starting with 1 and then researching a second or third type. If their were enough types of FTL I would even consider starting each race with 2 types, one 'jump' types and one 'contiguous' type. I've brainstormed 10 types so far.
The second factor is to introduce logistical limitations to all FTL, without some cost to move a ship the blob of doom is going to be the default strategy. As soon as moving a ship actually has a resource cost you stop moving any more fleet then you actually need and start keeping strategic reserves. On top of resource costs you can also have opportunity costs by making movement slower, thus any fleet deployment leaves you open in other areas for a long enough time to actually matter because your fleet can't get back quickly to save the day, this also has the knock-on effect of making intelligence on enemy fleet locations more valuable. I would use Energy as the 'fuel' for all FTL (though the method of spending it would vary), an empire would need to stockpile a large amount of energy for an offensive war effort and the cost would limit ones ability to penetrate into enemy territory, which removes much of the burden currently placed on defensive structures.
Fore our current 3 FTL types it would be as follows
Warp - Traditional 'gas-tank' fleets fill up in orbit of a 'fuel depot' from the global energy supply, fleets share fuel giving them a total range, fuel tanks are a part of ship design which allows you to make tanker ships. Going faster lowers fuel efficiency, higher tech improves fuel efficiency, speed and tank capacity.
Lanes - Ships don't carry energy, instead the lane holds it by being 'charged' with energy that is then consumed as ships pass. Charging takes time and can be done by construction ships or charging stations, lanes can be set to be to be automatically recharged. Higher tech allows ships to move faster and for lanes to hold more charge.
WormHoles - The simplest to understand a large lump-sum of energy is just consumed when a hole is opened. Though I would make the cost scale with the number of ships AND the size of the largest ship (think of it as the size of the hole being made) to add some interesting dynamics. Higher tech can increase range, the speed of opening the wormhole and energy efficiency.
Note that we should be allowing each race to use multiple types of FTL, ideally by starting with 1 and then researching a second or third type. If their were enough types of FTL I would even consider starting each race with 2 types, one 'jump' types and one 'contiguous' type. I've brainstormed 10 types so far.
The second factor is to introduce logistical limitations to all FTL, without some cost to move a ship the blob of doom is going to be the default strategy. As soon as moving a ship actually has a resource cost you stop moving any more fleet then you actually need and start keeping strategic reserves. On top of resource costs you can also have opportunity costs by making movement slower, thus any fleet deployment leaves you open in other areas for a long enough time to actually matter because your fleet can't get back quickly to save the day, this also has the knock-on effect of making intelligence on enemy fleet locations more valuable. I would use Energy as the 'fuel' for all FTL (though the method of spending it would vary), an empire would need to stockpile a large amount of energy for an offensive war effort and the cost would limit ones ability to penetrate into enemy territory, which removes much of the burden currently placed on defensive structures.
Fore our current 3 FTL types it would be as follows
Warp - Traditional 'gas-tank' fleets fill up in orbit of a 'fuel depot' from the global energy supply, fleets share fuel giving them a total range, fuel tanks are a part of ship design which allows you to make tanker ships. Going faster lowers fuel efficiency, higher tech improves fuel efficiency, speed and tank capacity.
Lanes - Ships don't carry energy, instead the lane holds it by being 'charged' with energy that is then consumed as ships pass. Charging takes time and can be done by construction ships or charging stations, lanes can be set to be to be automatically recharged. Higher tech allows ships to move faster and for lanes to hold more charge.
WormHoles - The simplest to understand a large lump-sum of energy is just consumed when a hole is opened. Though I would make the cost scale with the number of ships AND the size of the largest ship (think of it as the size of the hole being made) to add some interesting dynamics. Higher tech can increase range, the speed of opening the wormhole and energy efficiency.
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it's more than just the 1000 starts though, you also have 20 or so entities running around doing their own thing.
SotS always felt more 'arcady' if you get me. The game felt extremely designed for balance, but that's not really what i think paradox is making the change for either. I think they did it to open up design space. beyond that, my point is, that while SotS seems like it has 7 different FTL types, it's really just warp, hyperlane and wormholes (i didn't even expect to see the correlation until i typed this sentence)with a few cool rules sprinkled in between. The lizard people who i never play use standard warp, the hivers have gates built in each of their systems that allow instantaneous travel but have some limit of ships per turn if i remember, but slowboat otherwise. Loa use gates that project them to other systems like warp but have to slowboat otherwise. Morrigi is warp that gets faster the more ships you have. Liir have warp that gets faster the farther away you are from a star. Humans use hyperdrive. Zuul use hyperdrive where they get to make their hyperdrive lines and they decay when unused.
they're not actually like a ton of different FTL types. and the game was set up to only really play with 7 or so empires at a time.
Well then don't say things like "with 1000 stars it's hard to balance" if it's not actually about balance
Also, I'm pretty sure I said the same thing myself.
Some corrections.
Hiver was capable of "fling" at FTL a few light years at higher tech which can make short range intercept possible even against other FTL fleet except for Node travel by human and zuul. As soon they can setup more gate in combine with higher gate tech; mid to late game growth of FTL gateway coverage can be very large rapidly. You could even shotgun hundred of gateships to rapidly expand FTL coverage in an emergency. There is no way someone could intercept hundred of gate ship over a large area. Hiver gate network do have a limit to how many ships you can move at once and the "FTL fling" make up for that a lot.
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yeah i meant more like, balance the weight or impact each FTL has on gameplay, not like how effective they are. like, each SotS empire was very balanced in power, but they vastly changed how your empire expanded, how you played, and that was balanced in SotS, but not stellaris.
The FTLs feel lopsides when compared to each other, with some simply being better in way more areas than others with little design space to balance them. hopefully this makes sense.
That is the most depressing thought I've seen all day - that a feature which changes how your empire expands and how you play it has no room to be balanced in the design space of Stellaris. It suggests that ethos selections - particularly the three extreme hostiles - may well be next on the chopping block.
That's why logistics is good, it gives more design space for balancing stuff. Warp and Starlanes have no range limit by design, The cost of the FTL module in ships is basically identical, their is basically no difference in maintenance costs because of this, and no cost to move a ship.
Some FTL should be 'better' then others, so long as they have a commensurate cost. Asymmetric strategic design needs to include variable costs as an element. In StarCraft you see cheap Zerg units and expensive Protoss, if every unit had to be equal in cost it would be vastly less interesting.